For years, the agency that administers the city's highly acclaimed recycling program has steered residents wanting to recycle glass to specially marked dumpsters at a recyclerly in southwest Huntsville.

From there, the old glass was to be delivered to a remanufacturer to turn into new eco-friendly products.

The SWDA is now left red-faced by a dirty little secret that has been revealed. Turns out the glass hasn't been recycled for a couple of years.

At least not in the traditional sense. Instead, it has been burned with other garbage in the city incinerator - its ash then used as landfill cover.

Thanks for telling us.

What that means is every citizen who dutifully hauled their empty glass containers to Allied Waste's recyclerly off Triana Boulevard - burning their time and their gas - did it all for naught. The glass could just as easily have been tossed in their garbage at home.

Glass is not accepted in the blue bin curbside pickup program for recyclable household waste. The Dumpster setup was a way for green-minded citizens to do an environmentally responsible thing with glass containers that otherwise would be dumped in the landfill.

A group of green-friendly citizens discovered what was happening. They took their complaints to the City Council, fittingly, on Earth Day.

City Council President Mark Russell asked SWDA Director Doc Holladay to attend this Thursday's council meeting to explain.

The public is deserving of answers. "It's insulting that my personal effort and the effort of others has been disrespected," said citizen Thomas Moss in a story Sunday by Times city government reporter Steve Doyle.

Well said.

The SWDA contracts with Allied Waste to pick up, sort, and find markets for glass, plastic containers, discarded newspapers and other items recycled by local residents.

Allied's defense that burning glass is a form of recycling because the resulting steam is then turned into energy is bunk.

Glass isn't really combustible. The ash byproduct might help cover the landfill, but that's a small benefit for the trouble citizens went through to haul the glass and separate the items into separate bins for clear, brown and green glass - hoodwinked into thinking it would be recycled.

The SWDA operates the city's giant waste-to-steam plant that burns garbage and sells the steam to Redstone Arsenal to power buildings. Holladay said in hindsight someone should probably have placed a sign by the recyclery explaining what was happening to the glass.

If there's any silver lining, it's that Allied has a tentative deal to truck glass to an Atlanta factory to be turned into new glass products.

That's all well and good . If the public believes it.

The SWDA and Allied need to come clean with assurances that Huntsville's recycling program is indeed meeting its obligations. The public depends on it. Our planet will be better off from it.